always went alone, leaving Hiku on the mountain to talk
to the animals, to paint pictures on the cloth, and to play on curious
instruments he had made from gourds, reeds, and fibre, for he could
play music that made the birds stop in their flight to listen. The
mother loved the son so much that she wished to keep him by her so
long as she lived, and that was why she never let him go with her to
the shore. She believed that if he visited the towns and tasted the
joys of surf-riding, shared in the games of the athletes, and drank
the beer they brewed down there, and especially if he saw the pretty
girls, he would never go back to his mountain home. And though Hiku
wondered what life was among the people on the shore, he was obedient
and not ill content until he had passed his eighteenth birthday.

As he sat one evening with eyes fixed on the far-off sea, sparkling
under the moon, the wind brought the hoarse call of the surf and a
faint sound of hula drums, and a sudden impulse came upon him to see
the world for himself. He called to his mother that he was going down
the mountain. She tried with tears and prayers and warnings to stay
him, but his resolution was taken, and off he went, saying that he
would be back again some day. Though he was as green as grass and
untaught in the practices of the settlements, Hiku was a fellow of
parts. He was not long in making a place for himself in society, and
his first proceeding was to tumble head over heels in love. His flame
was Kawelu. She received him graciously, flung wreaths of flower petals
about his neck in the pretty fashion of her people when he called,
as he did every day from sunrise until dark; and when he could row a
canoe and had learned how to swim and to coast over the breakers in
her company, he had gained paradise.

The day came, however, when these pleasures palled upon him, when he
wondered if his mother had kept on sorrowing, when he had a longing
to see his old home, to breathe the pure, cool air of the hills. He
was an impulsive fellow, so he kissed Kawelu and told her that he
must go away for a while; that she could not go with him, because his
mother would probably dislike her. He had not walked a mile before
he discovered that Kawelu was following secretly. He increased his
speed, yet still she followed, and presently this persistence on her
part began to anger him. The one thing he had taken from home was a
magic staff that would speak when questions wer